15 ms·

16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese people name their babies

263 points by pmuk 10y ago

uhtred 10y ago
Now if I could just think of something to sell to the Chinese, and find a partner in China to help me set up hosting over there.
- tmikaeld 10y ago
  Go for it! 1. You can find good translators on UpWork 2. Use Alibaba Cloud (www.aliyun.com) to setup a server anywhere in China.
tvanantwerp 10y ago
My wife is Chinese and has told me many of the ridiculous English names people have. We've heard Cinderella before. My favorite that we've encountered was a young woman named Pancake. It's not just a problem of limited access to information, but also limited knowledge of what qualifies as a good English name. All of the people we've encountered were from Hong Kong, which has no Great Firewall to contend with. We've also seen many people using names that haven't been popular in the West in a long time, like Eugene or Doris.
- cafard 10y ago
  I guess that one could regard that as the counterpart to the odd Hanzi tattoos Americans get without having the slightest idea of whether they are done right. And plenty of Americans choose odd names for their children--out of TV shows, movies, comic strips.
  - kirubakaran 10y ago
    http://myapokalips.com/show/23 http://myapokalips.com/show/23
  - aidenn0 10y ago
    As an example of one such name becoming common, it is hard to find reliable instances of the feminine first name "Madison" before 1984: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088161/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088161/
- masklinn 10y ago
  > We've also seen many people using names that haven't been popular in the West in a long time, like Eugene or Doris. Those are both proper names and awesome though, it's a far cry from using random english/engrish nouns (or the reverse, getting random — and miswritten — hanzi inked on).
- tP5n 10y ago
  My favourite is still 'Ding Dong'. Makes me smile everytime I think about the kid, sadly he was later renamed to Marcus or something equally boring :)
  - Asooka 10y ago
    If my last name was Dong, I don't think I would have been able to pass the opportunity to change my first name to Maximus.
- dilemma 10y ago
  I have friends named Dolphin, Fish and Shadow and they know perfectly well that their names are funny. I'm certain that Pancake does too. Having an English name is a bit unreal for them just as it would be for you and me getting a Chinese name, so why not get a funny one? Also, naming in another language is difficult. Microsoft knows that, as "Bing" means disease in mandarin.
  - princeb 10y ago
    "Bing" also means stellar.
    - stephencanon 10y ago
      ... and "ice" and ...
      - dilemma 10y ago
        That doesn't negate the negative homonym.
        yoz-y 10y ago
        It kind of does. As previously stated no Chinese word is pronounced as the English word "bing". Mandarin makes heavy use of tonality and the same roman transcript (or pinyin) can have many meanings. You would really need to dig far to find an accent-less syllabe (for the lack of a better word) and not find any negative connotation. Heck, in Chinese even many numbers can be used as insults.
        stephencanon 10y ago
        Add to that the fact that the Chinese love to substitute similar sounding words to make puns, and it's completely impossible to come up with a name that doesn't admit some negative reading.
        dilemma 10y ago
- JimmyM 10y ago
  It did make me do a double-take the first time I found out that Chthonic's blood-soaked bassist was called Doris. Taiwanese band, not Chinese, but this particular cultural quirk does seem to carry over. There's a Freddy, Zac and of course Doris herself just in Chthonic.
- gbraad 10y ago
  Queenie, Thunder, Spark, Sky, Heaven, and many more...
  - gadders 10y ago
    Alpha, Simple..
- planetjones 10y ago
  Do you have some context about when a Chinese person uses their English name ? e.g. do their friends call it them, is it only for when they interact with Western websites, etc.
  - jmknoll 10y ago
    It depends on the person. Some will use it as basically a replacement for their actual name, others will use for only for business with people who can't speak Chinese. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be as strong a correlation as you'd expect between a person's use of an English name and their command of the English language. I used to work for a startup in Shanghai where no one spoke a word of English, except for the English names of the other employees. Office chatter was entirely Chinese, with a sprinkling of "Tony", "Leon", and "Francis." At the other extreme, I had a friend who was from Chongqing, but grew up and went to school in the west, who refused to take an English name at all because she didn't see the value in going by a fake name to all her friends.* However, by her own description, this was somewhat unusual, as it meant that people called her by her full given name all the time. And according to her (this could be wrong, I'm just repeating it, and its hard for me to verify as I'm not Chinese), Chinese people generally address each other by some kind of nickname. So bringing it full circle, an English name is not only kind of cool, but doubles as a nickname, which was already a part of the culture anyway. *I can see the merit in this. If you're going to befriend someone, especially someone of a different cultural background, telling him/her your name is basically the first chance you get to introduce them to your culture and language. But I digress.
    - amyjess 10y ago
      > At the other extreme, I had a friend who was from Chongqing, but grew up and went to school in the west, who refused to take an English name at all because she didn't see the value in going by a fake name to all her friends. Interestingly enough, an old friend of mine was the opposite. She's from China, came to the US when she was in sixth grade (she's still here), and I met her in high school. At the time, she mostly used her Chinese name. She only used her English name a little bit and never in class. She graduated a year before I did, we lost contact (this was before social media was a thing), and then a few years later, when Facebook became a thing, we found out we were going to the same college, so we reconnected. The first time I talked to her after that, I called her by her Chinese name, just because that was what I knew her by. She laughed and said she hasn't heard that name since high school. Turns out she dropped her Chinese name like a hot potato as soon as she graduated and has been using her English name exclusively since. I haven't called her by her Chinese name since. As an aside: much later, she got married, and she took her husband's last name, which is a western practice that isn't done in China, which really sums up how much she considers herself American. I never asked, but I get the impression that she felt that all parts of her birth name just othered her and she couldn't wait to get rid of it.
- paradite 10y ago
  I don't see why this is "ridiculous". It is the most natural result of not having the cultural and linguistic background. It is the same for English-speakers choosing Chinese names, or any X-speakers choosing Y names, for that matter. It may sound stupid or funny to the native speakers, but there is nothing wrong with the names per se, after all. With so many languages that are not English, there are bound to be many weird English names. I personally like the "ridiculous" names because they are adding something interesting to long list of boring "proper names". Also, Eugene is a pretty common name here in Singapore, where English is the official instructional language for schools.
  - imron 10y ago
    I don't see why this is "ridiculous". It may sound stupid or funny So, ridiculous then?
  - tvanantwerp 10y ago
    Nothing wrong with the name Eugene, but it isn't as popular in the West anymore. According to the Social Security Administration, it peaked in popularity among American men at 20th most popular from 1927 to 1929. In 2015, it was 822nd most popular. https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi
    - paradite 10y ago
      Google ngram suggests that the name's popularity is relatively stable, no drastic changes: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_start=1900&year_end=2015&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CEugene%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_st... It is declining fast in American English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CEugene%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_st... However, not the case in British English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=18&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CEugene%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_st...
    - 10y ago
- DanBC 10y ago
  I initially thought that Cinderella wasn't too odd, but there don't appear to be any new born girls called Cinderalla in 2015. Office for national statistics, Baby Names for Girls in England and Wales, 2015; https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/babynamesenglandandwalesbabynamesstatisticsgirls https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... (The last sheet has a list of all names). So, it's an unusual name. Other information about most common names. (Some Game of Throne names make it into the list.) Office for national statistics, baby names, 2015 registrations, England and Wales: http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/babynamesenglandandwales/2015 http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdea...
  - stevekemp 10y ago
    Searching against the Finnish naming index (http://verkkopalvelu.vrk.fi/Nimipalvelu/default.asp?L=3 http://verkkopalvelu.vrk.fi/Nimipalvelu/default.asp?L=3) I see that in the past five years there were: * Less than five girls called Cinderella. * Less than five boys called Cinderella. So rare and unusual, but not unique. (I find it interesting that there are a non-zero number of women called "Steve", because obviously the first thing you do is search for your own forename/surname!)
- dharmach 10y ago
  I am curious to know why so many Chinese people find it necessary for their children to have English name to visit US/UK in future. Do most of the outsiders in China have Chinese name?
  - frandroid 10y ago
    My understanding is that us non-tonal language speakers butcher their names anyway, both in pronunciation and in remembering them. I've asked multiple Chinese acquaintances of mine what their Chinese name is and I struggle to pronounce their names properly even with some coaching, and I very rarely remember them afterwards. And I'm pretty good at languages in general. These names exist in a linguistic spectrum that is different than Indo-European languages, which our brains are tuned for. It's just a lot more practical for Chinese people to get a Western name.
  - 794CD01 10y ago
    It's less necessary, because there are more Chinese computer systems that correctly support ascii names than English computer systems that correctly support GB/Big5/UTF16
- salmonet 10y ago
  Worst I've ever heard is "Placenta." It actually does sound like a really beautiful name, but to a typical native English speaker it is weird.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    That's also long been a joke name in the US referring to people who are less-educated http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.asp http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.asp
  - amyjess 10y ago
    This is the "cellar door" phenomenon. Turns out that when you divorce certain names or phrases from their meanings, names for mundane or gross things can actually sound quite beautiful. The canonical example is "cellar door", which is frequently considered one of the most beautiful strings of syllables in the English language. Tolkien was one of its most famous proponents, but a good many writers have said the same thing. And another has said the same about "salad or" (as in "would you like salad or roast vegetables with that?"), which is almost the same thing. Just forget about the meaning and respell it as "Selador" (it's better if you pronounce "cellar door" with a non-rhotic accent), and you've got a quite pleasant fantasy name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_door https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_door
- Jaruzel 10y ago
  As someone who doesn't know China very well, how important is having an English name? Is it legally their name, or just like a nick-name? Is it use daily or not at all?
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    It generally has no legal status and is mostly used for interacting with English speakers; some more Westernized Chinese people who go back to China might choose to use their English names in daily life though. Another place an English nickname crops up is in online identifiers like e-mail usernames, since for a long time Unicode support was lacking.
- jmde 10y ago
  People also underestimate the market for baby name resources. It's true in the US as well, something I didn't realize until I had my own child. Add to that additional uncertainty about a different culture and language, and it probably amplifies the market appeal.
- fallinghawks 10y ago
  My mom (Cantonese) once told me at least part of the reason many restaurants have "garden" in their name is because the sound of the word is pleasant to the Chinese ear. "gar-den" means nothing in Chinese (or at least Canto) but it just sounds good, and in the English language it means a pleasant place, making it a good choice for a restaurant name. Status-symbol names aside, I wonder how many of these names get chosen based on the pleasant sound aspect?
- baby 10y ago
  Juju and Coco were two of my friends when I was there. Diamond was popular.
pessimizer 10y ago
Three guesses at what inspired Beau Jessup's passion for helping parents to not give terrible names to their children.
- luastoned 10y ago
  Ouch, right in the feels. Got me smiling though.
- petercooper 10y ago
  ;-) Both Beau and Jessup are far more common names in England than the US (249th vs 1580th for Beau).
  - tantalor 10y ago
    It's very unusual for girls, probably because it literally means "male" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beau http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beau). 1 in 1,589 boys (http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Beau-boy http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Beau-boy) 1 in 235,542 girls (http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Beau-girl http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Beau-girl)
    - goodcanadian 10y ago
      It's very unusual for girls, probably because it literally means "male" No, it is from French: literally, "handsome," or the masculine form of "beautiful." Still an odd choice for a girl. The definition you quote is what it has come to mean in English, but it is really a shorthand.
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        Technically, the girls named "Beau" should have been named "Belle".
    - FoeNyx 10y ago
      Yet even more unusual than Adam for girls. 1 in 220,489 girls (http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Adam-girl http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Adam-girl)
galfarragem 10y ago
Interesting points to think about: - It's just a wordpress website. You don't need nothing fancy to be successful. - Unknown niche market instead of 'going with the flow'. - A 16 year old is capable of making a 'good enough' algorithm for a new market. - Her (amateur?) pricing strategy/conversion funnel seems more balanced than some made by professionals.
- mobiuscog 10y ago
  She has a wealthy (famous) family, very used to publicity and marketing, and one of their businesses is involved with China.
  - galfarragem 10y ago
    It's more productive to think that she used her advantages in a positive way instead of wasting them.
    - mobiuscog 10y ago
      Absolutely - but it should be portrayed in that context.
  - mpeg 10y ago
    That most definitely helped her get early clients and commercial success, but I think it's still very cool that a young girl was able to plan, build and execute a business idea. Most 16 year olds are just using their phones to send silly snaps to their friends and watch porn.
    - vtlynch 10y ago
      >Most 16 year olds are just using their phones to send silly snaps to their friends and watch porn. Because most 16 year olds dont come from a family with such a wealthy (both in money and opportunities) background.
      - 10y ago
XparXnoiAx 10y ago
It's kind of a problem. I knew a Chinese girl who chose the English name "Squirrel." When I told her it wasn't a real name, she didn't quite understand.
- caf 10y ago
  I dunno, that's definitely on the verge of working as a name. You can certainly imagine that as a nickname.
  - blowski 10y ago
    Yep - Douglas Squirrel (http://douglassquirrel.com/ http://douglassquirrel.com/) is a guy in London who does a lot of work with startups, and he is mostly known just as 'Squirrel'. Really cool guy, by the way, if you get the chance to talk to him at a meetup.
  - 317070 10y ago
    Well, my SO calls me that as a nickname. I have ginger hair and I am kind of impulsive. That and a squirrel came eating out of my hand one of the first times we met.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    A search on dobsearch.com turns up quite a few people named Squirrel. It's far from common, but it exists.
- jawilson2 10y ago
  If there are guys named River, Forrest, Leaf, and girls named Rainbow and Sunshine, then Squirrel isn't that far off the mark.
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    There are also girls named River, like River Song (Melody Pond) and River Tam, or--more seriously-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(disambiguation)#Given_name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(disambiguation)#Given_n...
mobiuscog 10y ago
If only the full 'background' was mentioned: http://www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/people/celebrity-interviews/lisa_maxwell_s_life_in_the_cotswolds_1_4122389 http://www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/people/celebrity-interviews/li...
- planetjones 10y ago
  Ok so her dad is Paul Jessup: who owns the Great British Teddy Bear Company and Big Red Bus English, offering language tuition to children in China. so not quite a rags to riches story, but she's still got a website that fills a need and is able to monetise. A lot more successful than many silicon valley start-ups :)
  - deong 10y ago
    More successful by my standards (and yours, I guess), but not by the standards silicon valley uses. I assume lots of objectively stupid businesses are run by people who are capable of doing something profitable, but profitable isn't the goal.
    - cLeEOGPw 10y ago
      In anywhere else where people don't throw billions into moonshots it is the goal. Nobody forces you to work on your small business all the time, you create it, you hire someone to do it, you collect money. If your only goal is to lose as much money as possible, as that means "pre-profit", then good luck.
  - bbctol 10y ago
    And plenty of Silicon Valley startups have rich/well-connected parents involved as well.
  - bshimmin 10y ago
    I think her mother is more famous actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Maxwell_(actress) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Maxwell_(actress)
- 10y ago
brianbreslin 10y ago
Why didn't I think of this? HMMM could this work for other asian languages?
- amgin3 10y ago
  Maybe, but I know in Vietnam, all citizens are required by law to have a traditional Vietnamese name.
skizm 10y ago
I'm confused, how did her website get around the restricted internet in China? The article mentions there are other similar baby naming websites, but China does not have access to them . What makes her site special?
- pja 10y ago
  Her site is hosted in HK. Maybe it’s on the right side of the Great Firewall of China?
  - wnscooke 10y ago
    The .cn strongly suggests it is on the right side!
- imron 10y ago
  It most likely doesn't. I'm sure the other naming websites aren't blocked either and the line about restricted Chinese internet sites was just 'journalistic licence'. The reason her site is more popular among Chinese is likely to be a function of targeting Chinese people, rather than the other sites which are geared towards native English speakers.
- tantalor 10y ago
  GFoC does not block sites by default; it functions as a blacklist. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quickly-check-site-visible-great-firewall-china/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quickly-check-site-visible-grea... You can check any site here: http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org However, I could not find the website for "Special Name" to check; does it exist? Edit: Address is http://www.specialname.cn/; http://www.specialname.cn/; it was very hard to find on Google.
  - vxNsr 10y ago
    Its actually in the top of the op article
    - 10y ago
brianbreslin 10y ago
How is she accepting payments in china? Does AliPay have a good system for that? I'm more interested in how one sells into china easily from the outside. Does paypal work ?
- pja 10y ago
  Looking at the html of the payment screen, it appears there’s some kind of "payment_method_alipay_cross_border" woocommerce payment plugin, which suggests that AliPay are handling it somehow. But since her family has business links in China, it probably isn’t a big deal if she gets paid in ￥ - there’s probably something they can spend it on over there & the family can compensate her here in £.
- germanier 10y ago
  She uses Alipay Cross Border https://global.alipay.com/ospay/home.htm https://global.alipay.com/ospay/home.htm which converts every transaction to GBP and remits the value to a GBP bank account. (Try going through to the payment page and you see the conversion to GBP happening.)
p333347 10y ago
Two things I wonder about. 1. does the money legally go to the girl or her parents/guardians (I guess a 16 y/o is still a minor), and how much of this is taxable? 2. how exactly is the tonality established for the English names?
- mikeash 10y ago
  No clue for #1, but for #2, the English name is typically given in addition to the Chinese name, and since it's in English it doesn't have any particular tones.
- cjg 10y ago
  "does the money legally go to the girl or her parents/guardians" - what a funny way of looking at things. An employer with a 16 year old employee would just pay that employee and wouldn't recognise the parents as having any right to it. At 16 you pay PAYE - i.e. income tax.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  The minimum age to register a company in the UK is 16. The minimum age for part-time work in the UK is 13, with exceptions for modelling and acting. Age 13-14, the most common job is delivering newspapers, since at this age there are big restrictions on working hours. At 15, it's more common to work in a small supermarket, but I think it's become a lot less common than 10 years ago. (Of course, there are unofficial jobs, like gardening and cleaning cars.) If this girl pays herself the whole £48,000 as a salary, the tax would be £12,693.20 leaving £35,306.80. Under 16s don't pay National Insurance (healthcare + unemployment etc tax), they would take home £39,600.00 from the same salary. The first £11,000 of salary is tax free, regardless of age. https://listentotaxman.com/ https://listentotaxman.com/ will calculate this. https://www.gov.uk/child-employment/minimum-ages-children-can-work https://www.gov.uk/child-employment/minimum-ages-children-ca...
  - p333347 10y ago
    Thanks for a constructive reply.
XparXnoiAx 10y ago
The big difficulty here is letting people know that the project even exists. Most people here could build it, but figuring out how to bring in customers is the hard part.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rajadigopula 10y ago
A bit of reflection - If I were in the same situation as the girl was, I would have named the baby and left it there. Hmm.. No wonder how many opportunities I am missing every day.
cheng1 10y ago
This is a fake marketing story. I guess her mother is the website owner, at least the website's about page suggests so in Chinese.
- imron 10y ago
  No, I think the about page is just trying to hide the fact it was started by a 16 year old. The image is just a stock image: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-160492445/stock-photo-portrait-of-a-smiling-mature-female-student-at-desk-against-bookshelves-in-the-library.html?src=fAN1L3wX9vKY63BAa-9O6g-1-14 http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-160492445/stock-photo-portra... Yes, the text is also misleading, but again it seems more to hide the fact that she's 16. Her father has businesses in China so it's likely that she has been visiting China for 12 years. I doubt she's been giving English names to Chinese babies for that long though.
dTal 10y ago
>But Beau doesn't know which names are the most popular on her website, and she's "happy about that". This could go hilariously wrong. Her algorithm attempts to match names with personality traits. Some personality traits will be more popular than others, therefore some names will be more popular. Depending on exactly how it's all weighted, some names may be heavily biased towards or against. Without feedback and adjustment to maintain a sensible distribution she could well end up naming every third baby the same thing. Without anyone ever noticing until the next census. Which gives me an idea for a website! "namemybabyaliceorbob.com"
- blowski 10y ago
  For that to happen, an awful lot of Chinese parents will need to start using the service. Anyway, it already happens in Western countries without algorithms.
- macintux 10y ago
  The names she's selling aren't used for official names, more like nicknames. See http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/04/the_names_du_xiao_hua_but_call_me_steve.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/04/the_na...
craigbarber 10y ago
The article makes out that the girl built and designed it herself. This is not the case, it's a slick, locally designed site ( Chinese language etc ) even the link at the bottom is for a parent company of some sort. It's a highly developed and tested site, this is no one person, overnight success.
brass9 10y ago
Googling "special name" turns up the BBC article. What is the FQDN of the actual website?
- rince 10y ago
  It's http://www.specialname.cn/ http://www.specialname.cn/ I think it's getting hammered at the moment
imron 10y ago
I had a look at the website (specialname.cn for those interested), and one thing that stood out is that she's definitely trying to hide the fact that it was founded by a 16 year old girl. Normally, I'd say there's nothing wrong with that and also absolutely no need to mention it, but in this case she's specifically misleading people who visit the site. Scroll down to the bottom (or view the about-us page - http://www.specialname.cn/about-us/ http://www.specialname.cn/about-us/) and compare the picture there to picture in the bbc article. One of those pictures is not like the other. The blurb is then even more misleading - saying she's been visiting China regularly for the last 12 years and is often asked by colleagues to give English names for Chinese babies. Now, given her father's business, I'm sure it's quite likely that she's been visiting China for 12 years, but I'm pretty sure she didn't have many colleagues when she was 4 years old. Mad props to her for setting up a site like this, and I can see the reasons for wanting to bend the truth with her background, but it just rankles a little to see this being done.
- kirubakaran 10y ago
  Why does that rankle you? People are biased and you have to work with that. This is no different than one person companies using the royal "we" in the website copy.
  - bshimmin 10y ago
    I think there's a difference between a solo freelancer saying "we" and said freelancer presenting a picture of some random people in a random office as "his team".
    - ksk 10y ago
      How have you established that they're random people?
      - imron 10y ago
        Reverse image search: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-160492445/stock-photo-portrait-of-a-smiling-mature-female-student-at-desk-against-bookshelves-in-the-library.html?src=fAN1L3wX9vKY63BAa-9O6g-1-14 http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-160492445/stock-photo-portra... Plus the text says "I'm Beau Rose Jessup the CEO and Founder of Special Name", which is clearly not the case if you look at the BBC article.
lorenzo20002 10y ago
I would like to know how she assigned personality traits to each English name Elegant, Motion, Sensitive, Insistent, Confident, Honest, Clever, Creative, Optimistic, Reliable, Keen, Have empa And how many names there are in the DB? between 1320=PERMUT(12;3) and 95040=PERMUT(12;5) ty
richardkeller 10y ago
The concept of marketing to an international audience fascinates me. I head up a small web design + development agency in South Africa, and recently I've set my sights on finding international clients, specifically in the US. How do people generally go about this? What kind of marketing went into this girl's business to do so well in a country that she doesn't even live in?
zizzles 10y ago
The website isn't even loading. The influx of HN readers must be overloading the low-bandwith servers. Edit: Finally made it on. Clicked a few icons (for which I believe represented personality traits) and then I was asked to pay money. Who would actually purchase this unintuitive random name generator? Chinese are absolutely delusional for using this, then again they'll eat anything up that comes from the Western World. Imagine if your son or daughter asked you how you came up with their name. Your response, "bought it for $11.99 on the internet".
verroq 10y ago
The site is http://specialname.cn http://specialname.cn Judging by the amount of well written Chinese text on the page this girl is either a native speaker or she had help. Nowhere does the page indicate the names are paid. However clicking though the flow takes us several seconds and requires us to agonise over five different qualities. By this time we are now sufficiently invested in this site. We are now so invested and curious we consider paying the 68 RMB price anchor. Luckily there is an ongoing "promotion" that allows you to buy your name for only 9 RMB, what a deal! This is the work of a genius.
kalsk 10y ago
Is it common for Chinese people to give their children English names, or is the intended audience native-english-speakers who are living in China?
billconan 10y ago
kinda unrelated, if I want to start an online business similar to this one to charge oversea users, how can I implement the payment system? what payment system would be available globally?
z3t4 10y ago
stock image of a woman : "Hi I'm the CEO ..." "please wait until our experts choose a special name for your baby ..." Where goes the line of white lies? Reminds me of "Catch Me If You Can" and "The Wolf of Wall Street" movies.
deadfish 10y ago
I used to live in China and met some students with very unusual English names. My favourite of which was 'Finger'. When I asked him why he chose the name he answered 'I like Kurt Cobain and he played the guitar with his finger'. Not sure what was wrong with Kurt.

263 points by pmuk 10y ago

Now if I could just think of something to sell to the Chinese, and find a partner in China to help me set up hosting over there.

tmikaeld 10y ago
Go for it! 1. You can find good translators on UpWork 2. Use Alibaba Cloud (www.aliyun.com) to setup a server anywhere in China.

tvanantwerp 10y ago

My wife is Chinese and has told me many of the ridiculous English names people have. We've heard Cinderella before. My favorite that we've encountered was a young woman named Pancake. It's not just a problem of limited access to information, but also limited knowledge of what qualifies as a good English name. All of the people we've encountered were from Hong Kong, which has no Great Firewall to contend with. We've also seen many people using names that haven't been popular in the West in a long time, like Eugene or Doris.

cafard 10y ago
I guess that one could regard that as the counterpart to the odd Hanzi tattoos Americans get without having the slightest idea of whether they are done right. And plenty of Americans choose odd names for their children--out of TV shows, movies, comic strips.
- kirubakaran 10y ago
  http://myapokalips.com/show/23 http://myapokalips.com/show/23
- aidenn0 10y ago
  As an example of one such name becoming common, it is hard to find reliable instances of the feminine first name "Madison" before 1984: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088161/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088161/
masklinn 10y ago
> We've also seen many people using names that haven't been popular in the West in a long time, like Eugene or Doris. Those are both proper names and awesome though, it's a far cry from using random english/engrish nouns (or the reverse, getting random — and miswritten — hanzi inked on).
tP5n 10y ago
My favourite is still 'Ding Dong'. Makes me smile everytime I think about the kid, sadly he was later renamed to Marcus or something equally boring :)
- Asooka 10y ago
  If my last name was Dong, I don't think I would have been able to pass the opportunity to change my first name to Maximus.
dilemma 10y ago
I have friends named Dolphin, Fish and Shadow and they know perfectly well that their names are funny. I'm certain that Pancake does too. Having an English name is a bit unreal for them just as it would be for you and me getting a Chinese name, so why not get a funny one? Also, naming in another language is difficult. Microsoft knows that, as "Bing" means disease in mandarin.
- princeb 10y ago
  "Bing" also means stellar.
  - stephencanon 10y ago
    ... and "ice" and ...
    - dilemma 10y ago
      That doesn't negate the negative homonym.
      - yoz-y 10y ago
        It kind of does. As previously stated no Chinese word is pronounced as the English word "bing". Mandarin makes heavy use of tonality and the same roman transcript (or pinyin) can have many meanings. You would really need to dig far to find an accent-less syllabe (for the lack of a better word) and not find any negative connotation. Heck, in Chinese even many numbers can be used as insults.
        stephencanon 10y ago
        Add to that the fact that the Chinese love to substitute similar sounding words to make puns, and it's completely impossible to come up with a name that doesn't admit some negative reading.
        dilemma 10y ago
JimmyM 10y ago
It did make me do a double-take the first time I found out that Chthonic's blood-soaked bassist was called Doris. Taiwanese band, not Chinese, but this particular cultural quirk does seem to carry over. There's a Freddy, Zac and of course Doris herself just in Chthonic.
gbraad 10y ago
Queenie, Thunder, Spark, Sky, Heaven, and many more...
- gadders 10y ago
  Alpha, Simple..
planetjones 10y ago
Do you have some context about when a Chinese person uses their English name ? e.g. do their friends call it them, is it only for when they interact with Western websites, etc.
- jmknoll 10y ago
  It depends on the person. Some will use it as basically a replacement for their actual name, others will use for only for business with people who can't speak Chinese. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be as strong a correlation as you'd expect between a person's use of an English name and their command of the English language. I used to work for a startup in Shanghai where no one spoke a word of English, except for the English names of the other employees. Office chatter was entirely Chinese, with a sprinkling of "Tony", "Leon", and "Francis." At the other extreme, I had a friend who was from Chongqing, but grew up and went to school in the west, who refused to take an English name at all because she didn't see the value in going by a fake name to all her friends.* However, by her own description, this was somewhat unusual, as it meant that people called her by her full given name all the time. And according to her (this could be wrong, I'm just repeating it, and its hard for me to verify as I'm not Chinese), Chinese people generally address each other by some kind of nickname. So bringing it full circle, an English name is not only kind of cool, but doubles as a nickname, which was already a part of the culture anyway. *I can see the merit in this. If you're going to befriend someone, especially someone of a different cultural background, telling him/her your name is basically the first chance you get to introduce them to your culture and language. But I digress.
  - amyjess 10y ago
    > At the other extreme, I had a friend who was from Chongqing, but grew up and went to school in the west, who refused to take an English name at all because she didn't see the value in going by a fake name to all her friends. Interestingly enough, an old friend of mine was the opposite. She's from China, came to the US when she was in sixth grade (she's still here), and I met her in high school. At the time, she mostly used her Chinese name. She only used her English name a little bit and never in class. She graduated a year before I did, we lost contact (this was before social media was a thing), and then a few years later, when Facebook became a thing, we found out we were going to the same college, so we reconnected. The first time I talked to her after that, I called her by her Chinese name, just because that was what I knew her by. She laughed and said she hasn't heard that name since high school. Turns out she dropped her Chinese name like a hot potato as soon as she graduated and has been using her English name exclusively since. I haven't called her by her Chinese name since. As an aside: much later, she got married, and she took her husband's last name, which is a western practice that isn't done in China, which really sums up how much she considers herself American. I never asked, but I get the impression that she felt that all parts of her birth name just othered her and she couldn't wait to get rid of it.
paradite 10y ago
I don't see why this is "ridiculous". It is the most natural result of not having the cultural and linguistic background. It is the same for English-speakers choosing Chinese names, or any X-speakers choosing Y names, for that matter. It may sound stupid or funny to the native speakers, but there is nothing wrong with the names per se, after all. With so many languages that are not English, there are bound to be many weird English names. I personally like the "ridiculous" names because they are adding something interesting to long list of boring "proper names". Also, Eugene is a pretty common name here in Singapore, where English is the official instructional language for schools.
- imron 10y ago
  I don't see why this is "ridiculous". It may sound stupid or funny So, ridiculous then?
- tvanantwerp 10y ago
  Nothing wrong with the name Eugene, but it isn't as popular in the West anymore. According to the Social Security Administration, it peaked in popularity among American men at 20th most popular from 1927 to 1929. In 2015, it was 822nd most popular. https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi
  - paradite 10y ago
    Google ngram suggests that the name's popularity is relatively stable, no drastic changes: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_start=1900&year_end=2015&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CEugene%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_st... It is declining fast in American English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CEugene%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_st... However, not the case in British English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=18&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CEugene%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eugene&year_st...
  - 10y ago
DanBC 10y ago
I initially thought that Cinderella wasn't too odd, but there don't appear to be any new born girls called Cinderalla in 2015. Office for national statistics, Baby Names for Girls in England and Wales, 2015; https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/babynamesenglandandwalesbabynamesstatisticsgirls https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... (The last sheet has a list of all names). So, it's an unusual name. Other information about most common names. (Some Game of Throne names make it into the list.) Office for national statistics, baby names, 2015 registrations, England and Wales: http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/babynamesenglandandwales/2015 http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdea...
- stevekemp 10y ago
  Searching against the Finnish naming index (http://verkkopalvelu.vrk.fi/Nimipalvelu/default.asp?L=3 http://verkkopalvelu.vrk.fi/Nimipalvelu/default.asp?L=3) I see that in the past five years there were: * Less than five girls called Cinderella. * Less than five boys called Cinderella. So rare and unusual, but not unique. (I find it interesting that there are a non-zero number of women called "Steve", because obviously the first thing you do is search for your own forename/surname!)
dharmach 10y ago
I am curious to know why so many Chinese people find it necessary for their children to have English name to visit US/UK in future. Do most of the outsiders in China have Chinese name?
- frandroid 10y ago
  My understanding is that us non-tonal language speakers butcher their names anyway, both in pronunciation and in remembering them. I've asked multiple Chinese acquaintances of mine what their Chinese name is and I struggle to pronounce their names properly even with some coaching, and I very rarely remember them afterwards. And I'm pretty good at languages in general. These names exist in a linguistic spectrum that is different than Indo-European languages, which our brains are tuned for. It's just a lot more practical for Chinese people to get a Western name.
- 794CD01 10y ago
  It's less necessary, because there are more Chinese computer systems that correctly support ascii names than English computer systems that correctly support GB/Big5/UTF16
salmonet 10y ago
Worst I've ever heard is "Placenta." It actually does sound like a really beautiful name, but to a typical native English speaker it is weird.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  That's also long been a joke name in the US referring to people who are less-educated http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.asp http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.asp
- amyjess 10y ago
  This is the "cellar door" phenomenon. Turns out that when you divorce certain names or phrases from their meanings, names for mundane or gross things can actually sound quite beautiful. The canonical example is "cellar door", which is frequently considered one of the most beautiful strings of syllables in the English language. Tolkien was one of its most famous proponents, but a good many writers have said the same thing. And another has said the same about "salad or" (as in "would you like salad or roast vegetables with that?"), which is almost the same thing. Just forget about the meaning and respell it as "Selador" (it's better if you pronounce "cellar door" with a non-rhotic accent), and you've got a quite pleasant fantasy name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_door https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_door
Jaruzel 10y ago
As someone who doesn't know China very well, how important is having an English name? Is it legally their name, or just like a nick-name? Is it use daily or not at all?
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  It generally has no legal status and is mostly used for interacting with English speakers; some more Westernized Chinese people who go back to China might choose to use their English names in daily life though. Another place an English nickname crops up is in online identifiers like e-mail usernames, since for a long time Unicode support was lacking.
jmde 10y ago
People also underestimate the market for baby name resources. It's true in the US as well, something I didn't realize until I had my own child. Add to that additional uncertainty about a different culture and language, and it probably amplifies the market appeal.
fallinghawks 10y ago
My mom (Cantonese) once told me at least part of the reason many restaurants have "garden" in their name is because the sound of the word is pleasant to the Chinese ear. "gar-den" means nothing in Chinese (or at least Canto) but it just sounds good, and in the English language it means a pleasant place, making it a good choice for a restaurant name. Status-symbol names aside, I wonder how many of these names get chosen based on the pleasant sound aspect?
baby 10y ago
Juju and Coco were two of my friends when I was there. Diamond was popular.

pessimizer 10y ago

Three guesses at what inspired Beau Jessup's passion for helping parents to not give terrible names to their children.

luastoned 10y ago
Ouch, right in the feels. Got me smiling though.
petercooper 10y ago
;-) Both Beau and Jessup are far more common names in England than the US (249th vs 1580th for Beau).
- tantalor 10y ago
  It's very unusual for girls, probably because it literally means "male" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beau http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beau). 1 in 1,589 boys (http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Beau-boy http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Beau-boy) 1 in 235,542 girls (http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Beau-girl http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Beau-girl)
  - goodcanadian 10y ago
    It's very unusual for girls, probably because it literally means "male" No, it is from French: literally, "handsome," or the masculine form of "beautiful." Still an odd choice for a girl. The definition you quote is what it has come to mean in English, but it is really a shorthand.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Technically, the girls named "Beau" should have been named "Belle".
  - FoeNyx 10y ago
    Yet even more unusual than Adam for girls. 1 in 220,489 girls (http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Adam-girl http://www.babynamescience.com/baby-name/Adam-girl)

galfarragem 10y ago

Interesting points to think about: - It's just a wordpress website. You don't need nothing fancy to be successful. - Unknown niche market instead of 'going with the flow'. - A 16 year old is capable of making a 'good enough' algorithm for a new market. - Her (amateur?) pricing strategy/conversion funnel seems more balanced than some made by professionals.

mobiuscog 10y ago
She has a wealthy (famous) family, very used to publicity and marketing, and one of their businesses is involved with China.
- galfarragem 10y ago
  It's more productive to think that she used her advantages in a positive way instead of wasting them.
  - mobiuscog 10y ago
    Absolutely - but it should be portrayed in that context.
- mpeg 10y ago
  That most definitely helped her get early clients and commercial success, but I think it's still very cool that a young girl was able to plan, build and execute a business idea. Most 16 year olds are just using their phones to send silly snaps to their friends and watch porn.
  - vtlynch 10y ago
    >Most 16 year olds are just using their phones to send silly snaps to their friends and watch porn. Because most 16 year olds dont come from a family with such a wealthy (both in money and opportunities) background.
    - 10y ago

XparXnoiAx 10y ago

It's kind of a problem. I knew a Chinese girl who chose the English name "Squirrel." When I told her it wasn't a real name, she didn't quite understand.

caf 10y ago
I dunno, that's definitely on the verge of working as a name. You can certainly imagine that as a nickname.
- blowski 10y ago
  Yep - Douglas Squirrel (http://douglassquirrel.com/ http://douglassquirrel.com/) is a guy in London who does a lot of work with startups, and he is mostly known just as 'Squirrel'. Really cool guy, by the way, if you get the chance to talk to him at a meetup.
- 317070 10y ago
  Well, my SO calls me that as a nickname. I have ginger hair and I am kind of impulsive. That and a squirrel came eating out of my hand one of the first times we met.
- mikeash 10y ago
  A search on dobsearch.com turns up quite a few people named Squirrel. It's far from common, but it exists.
jawilson2 10y ago
If there are guys named River, Forrest, Leaf, and girls named Rainbow and Sunshine, then Squirrel isn't that far off the mark.
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  There are also girls named River, like River Song (Melody Pond) and River Tam, or--more seriously-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(disambiguation)#Given_name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(disambiguation)#Given_n...

mobiuscog 10y ago

If only the full 'background' was mentioned: http://www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/people/celebrity-interviews/lisa_maxwell_s_life_in_the_cotswolds_1_4122389 http://www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/people/celebrity-interviews/li...

planetjones 10y ago
Ok so her dad is Paul Jessup: who owns the Great British Teddy Bear Company and Big Red Bus English, offering language tuition to children in China. so not quite a rags to riches story, but she's still got a website that fills a need and is able to monetise. A lot more successful than many silicon valley start-ups :)
- deong 10y ago
  More successful by my standards (and yours, I guess), but not by the standards silicon valley uses. I assume lots of objectively stupid businesses are run by people who are capable of doing something profitable, but profitable isn't the goal.
  - cLeEOGPw 10y ago
    In anywhere else where people don't throw billions into moonshots it is the goal. Nobody forces you to work on your small business all the time, you create it, you hire someone to do it, you collect money. If your only goal is to lose as much money as possible, as that means "pre-profit", then good luck.
- bbctol 10y ago
  And plenty of Silicon Valley startups have rich/well-connected parents involved as well.
- bshimmin 10y ago
  I think her mother is more famous actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Maxwell_(actress) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Maxwell_(actress)
10y ago

brianbreslin 10y ago

Why didn't I think of this? HMMM could this work for other asian languages?

amgin3 10y ago
Maybe, but I know in Vietnam, all citizens are required by law to have a traditional Vietnamese name.

skizm 10y ago

I'm confused, how did her website get around the restricted internet in China? The article mentions there are other similar baby naming websites, but China does not have access to them . What makes her site special?

pja 10y ago
Her site is hosted in HK. Maybe it’s on the right side of the Great Firewall of China?
- wnscooke 10y ago
  The .cn strongly suggests it is on the right side!
imron 10y ago
It most likely doesn't. I'm sure the other naming websites aren't blocked either and the line about restricted Chinese internet sites was just 'journalistic licence'. The reason her site is more popular among Chinese is likely to be a function of targeting Chinese people, rather than the other sites which are geared towards native English speakers.
tantalor 10y ago
GFoC does not block sites by default; it functions as a blacklist. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quickly-check-site-visible-great-firewall-china/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quickly-check-site-visible-grea... You can check any site here: http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org However, I could not find the website for "Special Name" to check; does it exist? Edit: Address is http://www.specialname.cn/; http://www.specialname.cn/; it was very hard to find on Google.
- vxNsr 10y ago
  Its actually in the top of the op article
  - 10y ago

brianbreslin 10y ago

How is she accepting payments in china? Does AliPay have a good system for that? I'm more interested in how one sells into china easily from the outside. Does paypal work ?

pja 10y ago
Looking at the html of the payment screen, it appears there’s some kind of "payment_method_alipay_cross_border" woocommerce payment plugin, which suggests that AliPay are handling it somehow. But since her family has business links in China, it probably isn’t a big deal if she gets paid in ￥ - there’s probably something they can spend it on over there & the family can compensate her here in £.
germanier 10y ago
She uses Alipay Cross Border https://global.alipay.com/ospay/home.htm https://global.alipay.com/ospay/home.htm which converts every transaction to GBP and remits the value to a GBP bank account. (Try going through to the payment page and you see the conversion to GBP happening.)

p333347 10y ago

Two things I wonder about. 1. does the money legally go to the girl or her parents/guardians (I guess a 16 y/o is still a minor), and how much of this is taxable? 2. how exactly is the tonality established for the English names?

mikeash 10y ago
No clue for #1, but for #2, the English name is typically given in addition to the Chinese name, and since it's in English it doesn't have any particular tones.
cjg 10y ago
"does the money legally go to the girl or her parents/guardians" - what a funny way of looking at things. An employer with a 16 year old employee would just pay that employee and wouldn't recognise the parents as having any right to it. At 16 you pay PAYE - i.e. income tax.
Symbiote 10y ago
The minimum age to register a company in the UK is 16. The minimum age for part-time work in the UK is 13, with exceptions for modelling and acting. Age 13-14, the most common job is delivering newspapers, since at this age there are big restrictions on working hours. At 15, it's more common to work in a small supermarket, but I think it's become a lot less common than 10 years ago. (Of course, there are unofficial jobs, like gardening and cleaning cars.) If this girl pays herself the whole £48,000 as a salary, the tax would be £12,693.20 leaving £35,306.80. Under 16s don't pay National Insurance (healthcare + unemployment etc tax), they would take home £39,600.00 from the same salary. The first £11,000 of salary is tax free, regardless of age. https://listentotaxman.com/ https://listentotaxman.com/ will calculate this. https://www.gov.uk/child-employment/minimum-ages-children-can-work https://www.gov.uk/child-employment/minimum-ages-children-ca...
- p333347 10y ago
  Thanks for a constructive reply.

XparXnoiAx 10y ago

The big difficulty here is letting people know that the project even exists. Most people here could build it, but figuring out how to bring in customers is the hard part.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

rajadigopula 10y ago

A bit of reflection - If I were in the same situation as the girl was, I would have named the baby and left it there. Hmm.. No wonder how many opportunities I am missing every day.

cheng1 10y ago

This is a fake marketing story. I guess her mother is the website owner, at least the website's about page suggests so in Chinese.

imron 10y ago
No, I think the about page is just trying to hide the fact it was started by a 16 year old. The image is just a stock image: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-160492445/stock-photo-portrait-of-a-smiling-mature-female-student-at-desk-against-bookshelves-in-the-library.html?src=fAN1L3wX9vKY63BAa-9O6g-1-14 http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-160492445/stock-photo-portra... Yes, the text is also misleading, but again it seems more to hide the fact that she's 16. Her father has businesses in China so it's likely that she has been visiting China for 12 years. I doubt she's been giving English names to Chinese babies for that long though.

dTal 10y ago

>But Beau doesn't know which names are the most popular on her website, and she's "happy about that". This could go hilariously wrong. Her algorithm attempts to match names with personality traits. Some personality traits will be more popular than others, therefore some names will be more popular. Depending on exactly how it's all weighted, some names may be heavily biased towards or against. Without feedback and adjustment to maintain a sensible distribution she could well end up naming every third baby the same thing. Without anyone ever noticing until the next census. Which gives me an idea for a website! "namemybabyaliceorbob.com"

blowski 10y ago
For that to happen, an awful lot of Chinese parents will need to start using the service. Anyway, it already happens in Western countries without algorithms.
macintux 10y ago
The names she's selling aren't used for official names, more like nicknames. See http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/04/the_names_du_xiao_hua_but_call_me_steve.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/04/the_na...

craigbarber 10y ago

The article makes out that the girl built and designed it herself. This is not the case, it's a slick, locally designed site ( Chinese language etc ) even the link at the bottom is for a parent company of some sort. It's a highly developed and tested site, this is no one person, overnight success.

brass9 10y ago

Googling "special name" turns up the BBC article. What is the FQDN of the actual website?

rince 10y ago
It's http://www.specialname.cn/ http://www.specialname.cn/ I think it's getting hammered at the moment

imron 10y ago

I had a look at the website (specialname.cn for those interested), and one thing that stood out is that she's definitely trying to hide the fact that it was founded by a 16 year old girl. Normally, I'd say there's nothing wrong with that and also absolutely no need to mention it, but in this case she's specifically misleading people who visit the site. Scroll down to the bottom (or view the about-us page - http://www.specialname.cn/about-us/ http://www.specialname.cn/about-us/) and compare the picture there to picture in the bbc article. One of those pictures is not like the other. The blurb is then even more misleading - saying she's been visiting China regularly for the last 12 years and is often asked by colleagues to give English names for Chinese babies. Now, given her father's business, I'm sure it's quite likely that she's been visiting China for 12 years, but I'm pretty sure she didn't have many colleagues when she was 4 years old. Mad props to her for setting up a site like this, and I can see the reasons for wanting to bend the truth with her background, but it just rankles a little to see this being done.

kirubakaran 10y ago
Why does that rankle you? People are biased and you have to work with that. This is no different than one person companies using the royal "we" in the website copy.
- bshimmin 10y ago
  I think there's a difference between a solo freelancer saying "we" and said freelancer presenting a picture of some random people in a random office as "his team".
  - ksk 10y ago
    How have you established that they're random people?
    - imron 10y ago
      Reverse image search: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-160492445/stock-photo-portrait-of-a-smiling-mature-female-student-at-desk-against-bookshelves-in-the-library.html?src=fAN1L3wX9vKY63BAa-9O6g-1-14 http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-160492445/stock-photo-portra... Plus the text says "I'm Beau Rose Jessup the CEO and Founder of Special Name", which is clearly not the case if you look at the BBC article.

lorenzo20002 10y ago

I would like to know how she assigned personality traits to each English name Elegant, Motion, Sensitive, Insistent, Confident, Honest, Clever, Creative, Optimistic, Reliable, Keen, Have empa And how many names there are in the DB? between 1320=PERMUT(12;3) and 95040=PERMUT(12;5) ty

richardkeller 10y ago

The concept of marketing to an international audience fascinates me. I head up a small web design + development agency in South Africa, and recently I've set my sights on finding international clients, specifically in the US. How do people generally go about this? What kind of marketing went into this girl's business to do so well in a country that she doesn't even live in?

zizzles 10y ago

The website isn't even loading. The influx of HN readers must be overloading the low-bandwith servers. Edit: Finally made it on. Clicked a few icons (for which I believe represented personality traits) and then I was asked to pay money. Who would actually purchase this unintuitive random name generator? Chinese are absolutely delusional for using this, then again they'll eat anything up that comes from the Western World. Imagine if your son or daughter asked you how you came up with their name. Your response, "bought it for $11.99 on the internet".

verroq 10y ago

The site is http://specialname.cn http://specialname.cn Judging by the amount of well written Chinese text on the page this girl is either a native speaker or she had help. Nowhere does the page indicate the names are paid. However clicking though the flow takes us several seconds and requires us to agonise over five different qualities. By this time we are now sufficiently invested in this site. We are now so invested and curious we consider paying the 68 RMB price anchor. Luckily there is an ongoing "promotion" that allows you to buy your name for only 9 RMB, what a deal! This is the work of a genius.

kalsk 10y ago

Is it common for Chinese people to give their children English names, or is the intended audience native-english-speakers who are living in China?

billconan 10y ago

kinda unrelated, if I want to start an online business similar to this one to charge oversea users, how can I implement the payment system? what payment system would be available globally?

z3t4 10y ago

stock image of a woman : "Hi I'm the CEO ..." "please wait until our experts choose a special name for your baby ..." Where goes the line of white lies? Reminds me of "Catch Me If You Can" and "The Wolf of Wall Street" movies.

deadfish 10y ago

I used to live in China and met some students with very unusual English names. My favourite of which was 'Finger'. When I asked him why he chose the name he answered 'I like Kurt Cobain and he played the guitar with his finger'. Not sure what was wrong with Kurt.